The Minecraft Marxists
The proletarian revolution is playing out on a desktop near you.
21023 Article(s) by: William G. Martin
William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog
Christian Zionists Helped Stoke Trump’s Iran War
The Christian Zionist movement has long pushed for regime change in Iran. With allies in Donald Trump’s inner circle and its ideas seeping into the US military, it has played a key role in building support for the current war.
Europe Is Sanctioning Critics of Israel and Militarism
Sanctions were once sold as a gentler foreign policy tool for exerting pressure on dictatorships and terrorist organizations. Yet measures like banning individuals from having bank accounts or traveling are increasingly used to chill free speech in Europe.
Capitalism Has a Lot of Room to Redistribute Wealth Right Now
Some on the Left believe that the capitalist system will not tolerate any greater interventions in its operation or redistribution of its spoils. There is no good evidence that this is true.
Brazil’s Left After Lula
As Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seeks his final term as Brazil’s president, the Left’s electoral strategy — who runs, which factions align, and how the coalition balances pragmatism with principle — is already shaping the post-Lula era of Brazilian politics.
Politics After Literacy
Postliteracy won’t replace reason with madness, but it might give us madness of a new and different type.
Julie Menin Is Protecting New York’s Ultrawealthy
Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to tax the superrich to fund universal childcare and other urgent working-class needs. The oligarchic city council Speaker Julie Menin is trying to block his agenda.
The Many Invasions Survived by Lebanon
Israel is again invading Lebanon and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. With Israel determined to crush all forms of resistance, Lebanon has been dragged into a war it did nothing to start.
Jürgen Habermas’s European Illusion
The late Jürgen Habermas saw Europe as a vehicle for a social democratic, postnational politics. But as the real European Union increasingly diverged from this ideal, Habermas’s thinking failed to reckon with the project’s fundamental limits.
The Afghan-Pakistan War Is Spiraling Out of Control
Clashes between Pakistan’s military and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers took a bloody turn this week as an air strike in Kabul killed at least 100 people. With world attention focused on the Middle East, there’s little sign of either side backing down.
Match Week Is a Scam That Exploits Medical Residents
Every year, an algorithm assigns thousands of medical students to residencies they can’t leave, can’t negotiate with, and can’t refuse. The Match system creates a captive workforce that stiffs residents and generates billions for the health care industry.
The Making of the Teenager
The teenager we know today came of age in the postwar era — but she owes her existence to the New Deal.
Sectarianism Has Never Ended a War
Amid the horrors of war, it’s always tempting for some on the Left to stake out more and more radical sloganeering. This was a dead end during the Vietnam War — mass action was not.
A Simple Demand: No Aid to Israel
Now is the moment for a presidential candidate who commits to cutting off all aid to Israel — whether it’s military or nonmilitary.
Israel Has Nuclear Weapons. It May Use Them.
There is little sign that Israel is achieving its war aims against Iran. But Israel is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons — and it may use them if it feels like it has run out of options.
In the New Geo-Economic Order, Price Shocks Are Here to Stay
The US-Israel war with Iran has made energy prices soar across the globe. In a world increasingly dominated by imperial war and great-power conflicts, inflation will become an ordinary feature of politics.
How Will the Future Judge Our Own Gilded Age?
At the end of the Gilded Age, Edwin Markham’s poem “The Man with the Hoe” became an ideological litmus test, polarizing the American public between an allegiance to either workers or the oligarchy in an age of massive inequality surpassed only by our own.
When the Pencil Was the Sword
When revolutionary Cuba asked its youth to eliminate illiteracy, 100,000 answered the call, reshaping their country and themselves in the process.
Colleen Hoover’s Awful Hollywood Reign Has Only Just Begun
Reminders of Him is exactly the movie novelist Colleen Hoover set out to make — which is the problem.
A Missed Opportunity for the French Left
First-round results suggest the French left can hold its ground in this month’s local elections. This positive outcome comes despite a campaign defined by an acrimonious civil war between the center-left establishment and France Insoumise.